XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: bree@bree.com   
      
   On 5 Oct 2005 13:02:19 GMT, Siwel Naph  wrote:   
      
   >Bree wrote:   
   >   
   >>>> What is your cultural background?   
   >>>   
   >>>Agnostic/Protestant-ish. I nearly had a Catholic upbringing and am   
   >>>kinda glad I didn't (tho it doesn't seem to have done Paul McCartney   
   >>>much harm, I spose).   
   >>   
   >> From Erewhon, I presume.   
   >   
   >Yis.   
      
   Lost me. I expected  'Sey.'  Or perhaps  'Roph erus.'   
      
      
   /snip/   
      
   >>>And any damage earthly injustice can do will also be temporary. The   
   >>>caste system can be justified by reference to reincarnation.   
   >>   
   >> Yes. Everyone gets their turn. No point in trying to improve things   
   >> for one's caste (or one's sex or race), as you may be born in a   
   >> different one next time anyway.  Rather than improve things for the   
   >> freshmen, get good karma and become a sophomore. :)  Tho the way to   
   >> get good karma for oneself, is to try to improve things for the   
   >> freshmen as a kindness to them.   
   >   
   >Couldn't you argue that doing good for them would be useless or a false   
   >kindness,   
      
   If the point of doing kindness is to get karma for oneself, that wouldn't   
   matter. Well, you wouldn't get as good karma for carelessly giving to some   
   probably fake charity, as for choosing a good one where the money would   
   really have some effect.  But that's on a different scale.   
      
   > because they have to work off their own bad karma by suffering?   
      
   I'm not sure the karma theories reallly say that.  There's lots of   
   different ones.   
      
   Lewis did support an orthodox Christian doctrine of pain being necessary   
   for clensing from sin. See Eustace and the dragon skin, PROBLEM OF PAIN,   
   and remarks about Purgatory.   
      
   Anyway, the bottom line that the karmic religions agree on (with a few   
   marginal snake handler exceptions, maybe, tho I'll believe in them when one   
   of them shows up here) is that we DO get good karma for doing good deeds,   
   and that's a major factor in salvation, almost the only factor worth   
   thinking about for some people. (Doing good deeds and getting good karma in   
   this lifetime, gets them to a future life where they _can_ think about   
   other factors. :)   
      
   Most Christians say it's better not to have a selfish motive for the good   
   deed: neither   
      
   1) 'I'll need this hospital myself in the future' nor   
      
   2) 'Donating will help me get to heaven.'   
      
   Hm, the karmic religions do emphasize 2) but rebirth sort of eliminates 1).   
      
      
   Bree   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)